Ep. 68 - Fear as an Ally with Mel Stephens

I had a dream that I died and it was black and I couldn't find my husband. And I woke up from that dream and everything changed. Welcome to episode 68 of Synchronicity. My guest this week is Mel Stevens from an amazing podcast called Fear-based Life. And we'll get to Mel in just a second. If you can't tell, I got a cold. There has been a cold circulating the Lampard household I think originally picked up on my 8-month-old son. He's almost 9 months, Eli then passed to me, now Alexis has it. So it's like germ warfare over here. But I am super excited about this week's episode. I'm going to keep the intro relatively short to save my throat and voice.

I got tuned in to Mel from Feral Audio. Dustin Marshall, you may remember as the second guest ever on this podcast, runs Feral Audio, which is a podcast network which truthfully is one of the best things out there right now. Mel's show in particular is really, really awesome. Like I said, it's called Fear-based Life. It essentially explores her fears, her guests' fears and really delves into some heavy stuff in every episode. I was the first person to review her podcast on iTunes. That's how much I loved it. She spoke a lot about death and her fear of death. She talks about it in this episode, but she essentially had a dream on her honeymoon where she was in this black void and couldn't find her husband, couldn't find anyone she loved, and it basically scared the shit out of her, and she hadn't really been so afraid of death.

But then after that dream, it kind of consumed her. This is something that death is obviously a fear that, I mean, I don't think that many people are immune from that fear, whatever conceptions, philosophies, ideas we like to believe in to buffer ourselves from the experience of death and what comes after. If anything after death, the truth is we don't know. We just don't know. I offer Mel some, you know, Buddhist terminology and, you know, ideas related to the Bardo states, and the truth is I don't have a conscious memory of Bardo states. I'm taking people's word for it when I'm reading it, and if it makes sense to me, that's why I resonate with it.

So we delve into death, we delve into other fears, we delve into also, I mean, how can you not, what the hell is going on in the United States of America right now? As I'm recording this, it is January 31st, 2017, Donald Trump and Steve Bannon are going to use my abeshit, there's no other way to say it. I don't want to dwell on this too much, except I want to offer the few things that have helped me during this first week of incredibly rough transition into the Trump presidency. You know, the Muslim ban took place, these deregulations are taking place. There's a lot of stuff going on. There's expected to be another series of executive orders.

So one thing I wanted to say is I get sucked into the social media vortex, especially Twitter. Over the weekend, it was nuts. I basically was glued to my phone. Every minute there was seemingly some new update on how some catastrophic thing had happened. Green card people being denied, visas being revoked, federal judges orders being denied. And yes, this shit is fucking terrible and it's scary, but I think it's up to us to regulate what's going on in our input needs to be regulated. I've now made a rule for myself that in terms of social media, especially related to Twitter, I'm only checking it two times a day.

That's from my sanity. I think I will go actually insane if I tuned into the same level as I did this weekend every day until Trump is either impeached or finished his term. So that's one thing. I think that's really important. Be mindful of your consumption of media. Mel and I in this episode talk about this balancing act between action, being aware of what's going on, but also working on yourself. And that's the second point I really wanted to touch on is we need to be angry and outraged. If that stokes our passion to do something positive, that's important. But we also really need to take care of ourselves first.

This is the story and it's even alluded to in this episode with Mel is you need to put on your oxygen mask first before you begin to help other people. Now that doesn't mean you just put on your oxygen mask and say, fuck everyone else. It means you put on your oxygen mask, you do the things you need to do to get yourself straight, then you start thinking about ways to make changes in the world. And they're not mutually exclusive. You can do these things in tandem, but looking at yourself is a prerequisite for creating positive change in the world. Because if you're not, there's so much extra stuff you're bringing along with you that it's almost impossible to be clear about what your intentions and aspirations are.

Okay. Moving on from that, I don't want to dwell on it too much. You know, everyone is talking about it, it's overwhelming for a lot of people. It's going to be okay. I mean, I've shared this before. My last thing I'll say on it, I think this needed to happen. I think we needed Donald Trump as president to see kind of the underbelly and kind of horribleness that it was below the service that maybe a lot of us wanted to pretend wasn't going on, especially if you lived on one of the coasts of this country. It's easy to kind of put up your blinders and not realize that this stuff is still going on in a very real way.

So I do think this needed to happen. The analogy I keep bringing up in this episode is it's like cancer. If you had cancer, you would want to know you had cancer, especially if it was treatable. What you wouldn't want to do is pretend like you didn't have cancer and not deal with it. This country has cancer. We have to deal with it. It's going to take time. It's going to take effort. It's going to take energy. But I'm very confident. There's so many amazing things that I've seen happen over the past week in terms of solidarity, protest, so many great things. I think if we just stay vigilant, we're going to come out of this in a very positive way.

I also think of the eching. If you know anything about the eching, there's these hexagram basically blinds that indicate certain states. When you reach the maximum state, so maximum prosperity, it flips. It flips then to the opposite state. So it would be maximum poverty and you start from there. I think we are moving towards maximum kind of chaos in our political system, which I don't think just ends with the destruction of the world. It's possible, but I don't think that's going to happen. And I do think brighter days are ahead. So really, truthfully, I don't have much else to say for this intro.

Check out the synchronicity community. Book Club starts tomorrow, February 1st, 2016, 17, I wish it was 2016 again. Never thought I'd say that. The book we're reading is The Toltec Art of Living and Dying by Don Miguel Ruiz. I set a 90-day essentially time to read this book. So we're going to be wrapping up March 15th. We're going to be doing some live discussions online. If you want to stay up to date on that, there's two ways to do it. I'll obviously update on this podcast, but you can join the synchronicity Facebook group on Facebook. Go to the website, syncpodcast.com, find it from there. You can also join the email community and I'll be sending out links to the live discussions and what's going on there.

I think it's going to be cool. I'm super interested to read this book. It's something I hadn't heard of. It was recommended in the Facebook group. We voted on it. And this is the one. We're starting tomorrow. That's something that's interesting to you. Join. Let's talk. Let's have a good time. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, rated, liked, loved, shared with their friends. I'm getting more and more emails from people who are saying some of their friends tipped them off to this. Tell your friends if you think they'd like it. I do that. This is why I'm having mail on this podcast. Listen to fear-based life.

It's an incredible podcast. You're going to love it. It's that easy. So, yeah. I don't got anything else this week. I'm going to save my voice. This is probably longer than I intended it to be without further ado. The lovely, wonderful Mel Stevens. Sorry. It didn't ring, but then I saw him as the call. It's all right. How you doing? Good. How are you? I'm good. You know, as the country around us burns and goes to shit, it's doing pretty well. Yeah. It's a lot. You're a G2, right? We just moved. I actually moved, we bought a house and we moved two days after, or two days before Trump got inaugurated.

Where'd you guys move to? We moved to Red Hook, New York. It's about 90 minutes north of the city in the Hudson Valley. Cool. Why did you choose there? A bunch of reasons. One, we lived in Manhattan for like eight, nine years up until 2015, so we have a ton of friends here. My mom lives like 25 minutes away in another town. And it's just like a really, really fucking cool place. It's weird because-- And you're close to Manhattan? And we're super close to Manhattan by train, by car, by anything. So like, I'm going-- But that's great. Yeah, it's awesome. And I'm like, I'm stoked that Duncan moved here too, or to Brooklyn, because-- Oh, really?

He did. That's amazing. Yeah. It's definitely like-- there's some weird shit. It's no funny because we're talking about living there. I'm telling you, it's like, I-- I mean, I wouldn't have to London, but I mean, I'll take it. Well, I mean, both-- I've never been to Europe, so I have no idea what it's like. I want to go. You've got to go. I know. I know. I know. Why I was listening to your last podcast with Baron Vaughn, and you were talking about how, after all the France attacks, you were terrified in France, I'm not dissimilar. I am also like, I have my own fear things and hypochondria related to fear, but yeah, I definitely want to go.

I mean, I'm also-- FYI, I'm like a huge-- I'm terribly afraid of flying. Like I have to take a Xanax and drink to get on a plane because-- Do you know what's so funny is I'm terribly afraid of flying, but I do really well internationally. In terms of that flight, the plane feels more stable to me. They're bigger because they're bigger. They're bigger. Like, it's much-- I don't know, there's something about it that I find very calming out of all of my fears, but like, it's not as bad if that helps you at all. Is that? It's nearly as bad as I feel like domestically. Well, I mean, that's-- so I'm coming to LA in March, and I am like super dreading the flight.

And my last flight back from San Francisco to New York was like one of the worst flights of my entire life. There's something about West Coast to East Coast in terms of like the wind and the mountain. The flight pattern. My flight to New York was fucking awful, and I had my dog, and I was like, this is-- like, the fuck? It was terrible. It was just terrible. I was like, this is not okay. It's usually the flight. Well, sometimes-- it depends. Like, I can't tell if it's two-- the East Coast are coming back from the East Coast, but I feel like either way, it's been bad. Well, I know you go with the jet stream on the way back, but what I hated about flying into New York from the West Coast is JFK and LaGuardia, like, those fucking crosswinds.

Like, I'm convinced we're going to crash every single time. Like, I'm just like 100% positive, like, this is it. It's all been leading up to this moment, and we're done. Cool. All right. So let's get started. Thank you so much, by the way, for granted to do this in coming on. I'm super excited to have this conversation. I'm a big fan of your podcast. I think I was the first person to review it on iTunes. Yeah, you were. And so fucking because this guy, Noah, who works for a barrel-- Yes. --I thought it was him for so long, because you're both Noah and you're last-- he's very similar. And I was like, is that Noah?

And I was like, oh, that's not Noah. That's the different Noah. So I love your music. So Dustin used to call me and be like, hey, what's going on? Like, do you have it ready? I'm like, you got the wrong Noah, man. It's not even close to the right now. But yeah, I'm thrilled to talk to you because, I mean, one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you is because I think your podcast is incredible. I think dealing with fear and getting it out in the open and drawing other people into it to talk about it, talk about their fears is like one of the most important things we can be doing, especially right now when I think a lot of people try to pretend, you know, there's this weird stoicism kind of trend that's going on.

And you know, you see it from it's so interesting because I, for a really long time, I didn't want to, for not for a really long time, I'm in that long, you know, for a while. I am on my podcast, you know, I was like, I don't love doing like politics. I don't do politics in my stand up or anything like that, but it's really interesting because it's so hard on my podcast to not talk about people's fears regarding what's happening, which always ends up getting into politics. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's so, and I can never get around to every episode like, oh, well, we're here again. Here we go.

You know what I mean? And now I'm like, well, it goes hand in hand at this point. It's just, it's one of the, I mean, just podcasting in general for like free form conversations. I was talking about this with some people who are on MindPod Network. They're just like, I'm trying not to talk about what's going on, but it's pretty much impossible. But I think, so, I mean, I'll give you my breakdown of why I think that's a good thing that we keep delving into this stuff because like, I am one of these people, I don't know how many of this of them there are, but I think that Trump getting elected was a good thing.

And I know that sounds like fucking totally batch it and saying, but the analogy I used yesterday, I was talking to my wife about it, I was like, listen, if you had cancer and it wasn't terminal, you'd want to know you had cancer. You wouldn't want to just go on like everything is fine and then find out you have cancer before it's too late. This country has cancer, it's had cancer since it's inception, we have that everyone knows the history, the brutal history of how we've treated Native Americans, black people, minorities, everyone. So I always think about like, if Hillary would have been elected, and I voted for her and she wasn't my favorite candidate, but I thought she was obviously much better than Trump.

If she would have been elected, this shit still would have been going on, right? It might have- I probably wouldn't be fighting it. Right. And so that's where I see the opportunity to be. Like yesterday? Oh yeah, because it's a lot of people right now, I find right now, like you cannot say anything negative about Obama. Like everyone is like, I mean, the smart people do, the smart people who I know actually have been following politics for a long time and can have the ability to step back. Now, do I think Obama was bad for civil rights? Like in this country? No. Like in terms of like prisons and like women's rights and gay rights?

Like absolutely not. And in terms of the world and like being a little bit dictator-ish with like bombs and shit like that. So he was Drone King. I mean, it's this is- And it's funny because people are like, you know, and I won't speak bad about Obama because, because here's to be honest, I felt safe under Obama. I felt because I liked him. I really just liked him. And maybe that's what Trump people are doing. I guess that's a good way to look at it, but if you say anything bad about him, people are like, I'm like, no, no, no, listen, it's just like you have to, you can't, if you can't look at yourself, then how do you expect the people who are, you know, on the pro-Trump or the right, whatever, I mean, they're just people, like how can you expect them to listen to us if you, or to look at themselves if you can't look at you?

You have to be able, you have to see your part. Right, and so this is to me the connection between fear and compassion and wisdom. Fear is one of the best gateways to actually understanding what our own minds are like and thereby understanding what other people and what their minds are like. So this is why I love talking about these things and love listening to your podcast because when you hear what a broad range of fears people have as individuals, that can inform your worldview, your personal view, your perspectives in a way that really is hard to do if you're just kind of not thinking about it or just kind of operating from your standard kind of protocol, you know, and what you're saying about Obama is totally true.

Like this is something that has always kind of weirded me out with politics in this country. I like Obama. I think he was a good president in a lot of ways. I think it's possible he's probably will go down unless I see someone better coming. It's one of the better presidents of our lifetime. That said, politics in this country has been fucked for, I don't know, 60, 70 years, like it is just a fucked up institution and to assume, I always thought that like, who would want to be president? Like what is going on in your brain that makes you want to assume that position because there are clearly ways to help the world, your community, people around you yourself without being president of the United States.

I mean, it's a shit job. You have to kill people for a living, like legitimately. So I totally know what you're saying on that point. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's hard. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's just a weird time. And I think it's so funny because I fast late, like I, I'm not the most educated policy wise, like politics wise, um, I, I'm educated enough. I think like, I think there's this guy on my Facebook who I, it's so funny. It's like, sometimes he's so left and then sometimes like he was very anti Obama, um, which didn't make him pro Trump either, but he, um, you know, he was like very open about, but he's also like very like pro black lives matters and, you know, certain movements that I, I really, um, support and, um, you know, he would point things out in terms of just like our government and how it wasn't working.

And, and it's so funny because he's not anti guns and he's like, that won't help. And I'm like very against him on that. I'm like, no, I don't believe that. But I want to ban on all guns and he's like, well, that'll never happen. And I'm like, absolutely. Because, and it just, this country will never let that happen. What's the guns? You're not taking them away. It's not. It's never going to happen, but it, but he was saying in terms of like controlling and managing the guns, like it's just, it's going to become like a money machine again. And I was just like, well, it was just really interesting because it was one of those things where he pointed out a lot of things to me about, um, like Obama that I was really unwilling to see for a really long time.

Yeah. Um, because to me, it was just like someone was showing me cards, right? And like one had like a big, like, you know, like multiracial marriages and the other one was just like, oh, we're a sis. And I was like, yeah, that's that. And that's that. And I was just like unwilling to see any other cards. Right. And you know, and I never unfollowed him because we would have these constructive, we would just have constructive conversations about it. And to be honest, he's been like the most helped. And, and he was so true. He was like, I'm just anti our government right now. And he speaks out just as much about Trump and, um, I don't really know where I'm going with this.

That's okay. I mean, I, I, here's the thing with this is the position, especially yesterday and what this will be released a few days after this, but Trump's immigration ban went into full effect and kids and families and scientists and doctors were basically being banned from coming into the country and sent back, like, you know, like cattle, like essentially exactly what happened in 1939 with Jews trying to flee the Holocaust, like literally again. So everyone is freaking the fuck out on like Twitter is typically where I go. Did they freak out in 1939? Oh, this is what's so weird. I imagine there was a freak out and I, I had a, another tweet I put out yesterday that was like, you know, I know a lot of people because of my interest, but did they fight back?

The, as far as I know, no, but I don't, it's hard to say because we don't have the same kind of recording of information and above the table, like, Oh, this was going on now. That's instant. Like Twitter overnight became a place where I go to make funny jokes and talk about, you know, absurd things to literally being the most direct channel to clowing me into what's happening right now at airports and the protests and everything else. So this is where this is, this is something I'm really interested to talk to you about. I've noticed in myself, I consider myself someone who can step off the treadmill of the news cycles and, you know, not get sucked into what's happening in a way that's going to be detrimental to me and people around me.

And said yesterday just shattered that illusion completely. Like I was totally fixated from the beginning of the day to the end of the day about everything that was going on. And I know that if I'm the type of person who's consciously aware that this is happening and like, Oh, this isn't that good of a thing. I should probably start stop doing this so much. How many people are getting sucked in and then getting whipped into a state of fear and anxiety that basically I think a lot of people feel right now, like, as long as he's president, as long as Bannon is in the White House, this is how people are going to feel every single day.

And where your podcast comes into this and your kind of perspective is like, you've been talking about a fear based life for a long time. I think a lot of people now are quickly getting into that mindset, which they never really acknowledged or realized was the potential. And I'm just, I'm fascinated with what's going to come out of all of this stuff because something good I do believe is going to come out of this. And I just, I'm curious to hear like, how have you been reacting to all the news? Is it something that, you know, my policy for this is I have too much shit going on in my personal life to be too consumed with what's going on out in the world.

But now the two have merged and I, it's truthfully very difficult for me to kind of pull away from what's happening out there just because it seems so incredibly horrible. Well, yeah, I think, you know, like, my instinct is, you know, we were afraid before this and we'll be afraid after this. You know, I think that's why people talk about the Cold War very similarly to this, I think, in terms of like they had fear, they had a lot of fear of it was, I think, I don't know if it was real or perpetuated, I don't know, I should know more about it to actually speak about it. But I do think that, you know, in terms of technology, it's so interesting because I actually looked up if there was like a Facebook anonymous program, just because I was interested and there is now an internet and tech addiction anonymous.

I don't know if that's appropriate for me to say that out loud, but there is a top step program for people who are addicted to the internet because I have that thought I was like, there's gotta be, there has got to be because it's gotten to the point where, yeah, people I think, you know, to me, what's scary is, you know, how much of it is being active and how much of it is, is perpetuating, right? It's like passive consumption, yeah. Yeah, that then turns, you know, that then it turns into that shooting, I don't know, it wasn't Ohio, from the guy who felt like his, you know, he was being targeted because of the election, right, and because of things online, is this feeling like the worst parts of us or, but then also like, I went off a Facebook for a week and I could read the news and I felt a lot better.

I don't know if you listen to Jenny, Johnny Pemberton's episode, but of course, he's one of my favorite, you know, and I took that to heart and I was like, okay, let's try it, you know, and I, and I do agree that I do think a lot of it is because I think you can't really know unless you read the right papers and the left papers to really know what's happening, right? And so I really enjoyed that week off. The only problem was, is there was like a lot of things I didn't get to know about, right, but at the same time, like, it's hard, right? I mean, I would like, I would like to ask Johnny, like, I mean, like, I'm sure he fucking knew about it, like, I'm sure he, like, at the same time, like, I think it's appropriate.

Like, I'm also like, it's weird. I vacillate in between, like, like, let's not get so hysterical because, like, hysterical is historical and it's going to get bad, right? It's not going to be proportionate, but then I'm like, no, I don't want to sit back and be what other people have been in the past and like, right. And I also do believe, like, I really don't appreciate, you know, people being like, today, actually, I got into a common threat with somebody, which I was very happy. The woman whose threat it was eventually shut down the comments. And I was like, great, I'm like, great, I'm going to go back to like, like, it was one of those things where I did feel very much like, I have to find the link to send to the case before I went to be honest, I should have meditated this morning.

I should have called my husband first, I should have taken care of myself before going straight on Facebook and, and proving somebody that Trump is anti Muslim, like, that shouldn't have been because now that I'm like talking about it out loud, I'm like, is that, do I think it helps maybe there is a part, like, if it's a constructive conversation, like, I'm, I'm hoping they're seeing what's going on, but is it action that is, that is doing something and I think that that's the gray area that I'm interested in is like, you know, what have, what of the internet is helping and what is harming and how can we use that and know that like, how can we be smart about it and be like, okay, this isn't helping.

So with particular, like, I would love it if there was just sites like, we can't look at these sites, don't use these new sites anymore, like just to blanket, like, don't trust them, don't pace them, they're, you know, and I also think a part of this is, you know, it's, it again, it starts at the top, right? We don't have any reason to be like, we do have a reason to be upset because I'm fearful because this woman said on this thread, like, you know, I think posting things like this on Facebook gets people who are, you know, of other races really upset and really scared and I said, they fucking were all scared.

Yeah, you're talking about, I was like, like, there's a band, it's scary, like, it's scary, it's scary because a woman was kicked to JFK airport for wearing, you know, her hijab and like, that, that's, that, yeah, it's happening. And my thought was like, you know, are we, are we, like, perpetuating that, but then also, you don't, I don't want to just post pictures of dogs either. So it's like, what's the. The balance, right? This is. What's the balance? How do you find balance? This to me is the most critical issue facing people under the age of 45 right now. Over two, but primarily people under the age of 45 because what you're talking about here is how do we regulate our consumption of news information?

How do we then integrate that and then take positive action? I think, well, and that's, and that's, and that to me is the most important because to be honest, like we're just, we're not. I feel like, and all speaking, I've seen, I feel like I come from a generation where is I'm extremely apathetic and action is not in my nature, action is not something I want to do. And you know, my husband said this thing, we were at dinner in England and he was talking about he, because he's like a big history buff and he was like talking about how like it's harder for people to have empathy now because it like doesn't directly affect them and it has something to do with the rule of like you can only really empathize with 200, 250 people in your circle or something that you know and like the further out, like the harder it is to empathize with things that just like, it's an, like because before you used to not know what was going on in other countries.

So you weren't having to, to really take your mind to that place, you know, and, and he was talking about how it was really difficult for people to like, well, it doesn't really affect me. Right. It was hard for them to empathize, but then I also heard when he was talking about that like, we didn't always know everything. Exactly. Now, do I think we should unknow it? No. And how do you, because your mind can't fully understand it, like it can't reach it. I'm not some, I'm not a woman, you know, intellectually and conceptually, you're right. It can't. But what you spoke about a little bit ago, I think you tapped into what the real answer to this is.

And this is something that may seem passive to some people, but in my direct experience, which is truthfully, the only thing I can, you know, hold up is something that is real. You know, working on yourself, cultivating that space via meditation, being whatever regular practice you do that works for you. And that's the most important thing, whatever works for you. It doesn't have to look a specific way. Cultivating those skills. I mean, even a meta meditation, that's, that's a direct way, a loving kindness meditation is a direct way to cultivate empathy. And that is how, I mean, the practice is literally, you start with yourself, may I be safe, may I be healthy, may I be happy, may I be well, then you move to your loved ones, then you move to your friends, then you move to your acquaintances, then you move to neutral people, then eventually the goal is to move to people like Steve Bannon and Donald Trump.

And it's not something that is ever going to come naturally to someone, you know, the first hundred thousand times they're doing it. But over time, you begin to detach from the reactions that I think everyone is caught up in right now, aided and abetted by technology. So when you're talking about what do we do, where do we go, how do we find this stuff, like what, I wish there was a site I could go to where I knew that this was good. I don't, I mean, I think it's safe to say that's probably never going to exist. I mean, if it does, it's going to be so far in the future, it's just not going to be relevant to us in terms of practically dealing with the situation.

But I do think bringing it back to yourself, this is one of the dangers I see, what I'm really actually encouraged about with the protest is they've been incredibly peaceful. Because I think one of the dangers with protesting, and this gets back to kind of the action versus passive stuff, and I'm the same way, I protested once at the Supreme Court in 2000, because I lived close to it when Bush won beat Gore in the recount, five to four Supreme Court decision. I protest it mainly because I wanted to miss school, but I also believed in the court. So that's what I did, but I am typically not the person who believes that I'm going to go out there and protest on the streets with other people.

Just because there's two reasons, one, I don't think that's my natural proclivity. I don't think I'm really good at doing that. And number two is I don't trust myself not to react in a heated situation. If a neo-Nazi gets up in my face and starts saying a bunch of shit, and this is, you know, we'll talk about the Richard Spencer thing here too, because I'm one of the people, and I know this is fucking weird, I don't think you should punch him in the face. I think there's plenty of reasons that that's not a good idea. Oh, you should never, ever, ever, ever put your hands on anyone else. So, but you, I'm sure you see it like I do everywhere friends, peers, people have no problem with it.

He's a Nazi. You should punch him in the face. That's what you're supposed to do. My reasoning for not punching him in the face has less to do with the kind of moral ethical components of it, and just like, I don't want to have to deal with that karma and emotion and all of the other shit that comes along with it once I go down the road where it's okay to punch a certain type of person. Because I think, and the reason I believe this is I think if you do enough meditating, if you do enough psychedelics, if you have enough deep conversations with people, and it kind of pierce the veil of what the fuck is actually going on here, you realize what you think of yourself, like Melissa Noah, what we believe ourselves to be, if you really keep digging down, that shit just breaks apart.

It just doesn't exist. There are just a combination of thoughts, emotions, feelings, ideas that kind of swirl around and oscillate and vacillate throughout the days. So once you realize that, you have to understand that that's everyone. So if there's no real self, if there's no real Noah who's a thing who I like to believe he is, that means there's no difference between me and anyone else. That means ultimately, at the end of the day, whatever Steve Bannon is thinking in his totally deranged mind, that's not real either. So that makes the playing field a lot more level in terms of when you're trying to figure out how to take action out in the world.

What I'm basically trying to say is, I think the best way to approach this, at least for myself, and this isn't for everyone. This is for myself is, I'm trying to work on my own shit. I'm trying not to yell at my wife, get upset, get cranky, you know, say fucked up things. Like that's my number one priority. Once I feel like I get to like a baseline level, like, okay, I'm a functioning nice person right now, then is when I turn my focus to what are the injustices of the world. And it's not to say that I'm not aware of them and that I don't have plans to deal with them. I just know going out into the street for protesting is not something right now that resonates with me.

Like that's going to enact change. And I'll also say this, I think there are so many ways to positively help the situation right now. Like I was talking about it with Vic, I hit Vic Burger up the other day, because we've been friends for a little bit now. And I was like, listen, and I took inspiration for what Tim Heidegger was doing. He was making all these songs about Richard Spencer, about Donald Trump. And he was saying, if you buy this song, I'm donating it all to charity. That to me is one of the best fucking things I have ever seen in my entire life. So I hit up Vic and I was like, Vic, I know you're super busy.

I know super deluxe is on you nonstop to make videos. But if you ever make a video and want to attach it specifically to a charitable cause, I will tap every single one of my networks and make sure that this thing is as successful as it possibly can be. Because turning art, pain, horror, tragedy into something positive, that's where I think the alchemy and the magic can happen in these situations where it goes back to the cancer analogy. That's our antidote. That's our treatment. Like none of this women's march would have happened, none of these Muslim ban protests would have happened. None of this stuff would have happened if we wouldn't have kind of gotten this shit up into the surface.

So I'm trying to balance that thinking with the sheer horror of what we see every day. And I, and I, and again, not to hammer the cancer analogy, but if you or anyone you know has ever been diagnosed, after someone gets diagnosed with cancer, it is 100% normal to freak the fuck out. It is terrifying, it is scary, you don't know what's going to happen. And if anyone comes up to you says, Hey, don't worry, it's not going to be so bad. You're going to be like, shut the fuck up. Of course, this is the worst thing in the world. So I think we're still in the diagnosis stage. We haven't come to terms with like what the positive actions across the board we can do.

So we're still kind of reacting instead of kind of intelligently responding. But I do think that's going to come. And I think that it's important to remember that as shitty as things seem right now, they're not the nature of life on this planet is impermanence. Like that's the one thing that is the constant that things are going to change. So this isn't a permanent state of being for us. And we have opportunities to get out of that. So I mean, that's, that's what I keep trying to remind myself. And exactly like you're doing, I talk about this shit with other people to validate and test these opinions to make sure that they're real.

Well, yeah, and I think like for me, I think with some, you know, what is something that like, that's interesting, I think is like, yeah, like when, whenever we are, we're human beings and we're just reacting, like that's never like a good place to be, but you can't get into a pausing place where you can pause and then take a minute and be like, okay, how do I want to come at this in an intelligent calm, like, so in a poignant way, you know, you can't do that until you're aware that you're even reacting, you know what I mean? Like, you can't stop reacting unless you know you're actually just reacting.

And I think that that's like a lot of what is happening. And like, I think it's a good idea, like definitely, you know, this person, it was terrible. We were having, I was having this like pro-Trump conversation with this woman who was like, you know, we can't, it's like they say on airplanes that you can't put your oxygen mass on other people before you put it on yourself, like, and I was like, okay, great analogy, but like in the wrong place, like, you're saying like, let's put it on ourselves and like never put it on anyone else, but like, that's fine. But it is that thing like that self care and taking care of yourself and figuring out how to do that and speaking out about it with equally the amount of action, whatever your action can be, like, because I do believe like, you know, my life is sort of surrounded by me taking contrary action to what I'm thinking and feeling, to what I know to do.

And that that is the same with politics. It's all contrary action. I don't actually want to get involved in politics. I don't actually want to go to a protest. I don't actually want to go to therapy. I don't want to stop drinking. I don't want to write. I don't want to act. I mean, really, I just want to like lay comatose in a bed. Watch TV. You know what I mean? Like, all of these things, like, for me, it's just about taking these sort of like whatever your tiny steps are. And I think, you know, one of the good things I like is like, I just wish they weren't on Facebook or Twitter, I wish they were more email based or more.

I mean, they are having in person like, Hey, how can we get active in our community and like get into midterm elections? And how can we help people who are going to Planned Parenthood or escort people who are going to the clinic? Or, you know, stuff like that, like that, I do believe, you know, I just think it takes more positive actions to outweigh the negative ones. Now, here I am in the middle of an episode again. This week, I actually have something cool to tell you about. I've mentioned it before. My friend Brandon Park has been working on an incredible project based around mindfulness. We have contributions for this project from over 30 teachers, entertainers, sharing their tips on mindfulness related not to meditation, but how to stay aware throughout the day.

So if you're interested in what this is, this is a completely free sample that I've put together with Brandon, it's my tips on how to stay mindful throughout the day. And it's also Duncan Trussells. He's wrote a written, a quick essay that you can check out. If you're interested in this, go to sinkpodcast.com/mindfulness and you'll be redirected to a free sample page where you can get this and find out a little bit more about the project. So that's it. I'm going to get you back to the episode. How awesome is Mel, by the way, she's super awesome. All right. Bye-bye. As you continue to push yourself out of your comfort zone, that's where the real kind of change, positive change, not always positive, but can positive change can emerge from?

And I think again, kind of making the tie between individual and collective, I think that's where we are. We think everything that we experience in our minds from day to day, the fears, the hopes, the dreams, the good things, the bad things, we're just seeing this played out right before our eyes on a national and collective level, which again, refocuses the importance of kind of working on the awareness of what's going on. What you said about you can't deal with your reactivity until you have an awareness of the reactivity. I look around and I truly wonder sometimes like how many people actually get that?

How many people even are kind of aware that that's a concept that exists because you know, you see it all. I mean, it's so little. I mean, that's not true. I mean, I'm judging. I have no idea, but I do see a lot of, but like, that's human, you know, human nature. Like there are people who are working on themselves and then there are people who like get mad at their wives and shoot them in the face. And it's not just about politics. It's about like, they are human to don't have, for whatever reason, and that goes into like trauma and they were abused and mental and mental disorders and like, and all of those are conversations that need to be had, like, you know, there are people who are sexually abusing kids who were sexually abused as kids, they're people who get mad and hit themselves and until they hit the bottom or and whatever there.

And some someone's bottom, whether they know it's a bottom or not, could be murder, and then they're in jail and then they're murdered, like we do. Are they even aware of their bottom? I don't know. I know that they're probably in a lot of pain and in order to sort of stop that pain cycle, you know, I do think it's sort of like. And that I'm learning more about because I also, because of my own sort of pain and trauma and all of this stuff and working on myself, like, I can see where I have lack of compassion for certain people, where I refuse to maybe see where they're coming from or where I refuse to see where maybe like I know that there have been times where like I'll see someone's abuse or I'll hear about it and just because of where I come from, I'll be like probably not true and I'll literally stop myself and be like, you have no fucking idea if that's not true.

Also like, why am I taking away from their experience? Like, okay, so they feel this way because it's all about like, for me, I'm like, oh, it's too much emotion. Don't be too victimy. You know what I mean? Don't like have, it's all like controlling and managing. So I think the more that I can have compassion, even just in my regular day life for people who might not see their reactions and not that I'm going to walk around like I'm a mom. And also like where I can see mine and I can go back and apologize like I sent to this woman and I said, I'm sorry, I like Bogart in your thread, like I apologize, like I felt like she was being racist.

And I, again, I had to of course like demonize her, but fine. I took responsibility for myself. And now the next time I'm on a thread, I can be like, am I getting, am I getting, is this how I'm going to spend my time right now? Yes, yes, yes. I mean, that's again, like you can look at the situation and you could choose like, oh, I fucked up. I said all these things. It wasn't productive. I'm such an idiot. Or you can say, you know what? I learned a fucking shitload right there. You know, this shitty experience where I caught myself doing something that wasn't productive, I now caught myself doing that and I'm going to be aware and on guard for that for the future.

So I want to shift gears a little bit and kind of ask you, ask you how did you decide to come up with fear, like where did fear based life come from? What was the genesis of it? And then the follow up to that is I know from doing a podcast now, almost 70 episodes, this shit just completely changes your life in ways that you couldn't imagine just from the conversations that happened. So I'm interested to hear about how that has impacted you too. But I mean, like I said, I, I don't listen to a ton of podcasts, which is ironic because I have a podcast network, I have my own podcast, but yours is one that I consistently listen to because it's just the conversations that emerge from it based, you know, starting from the point of fear are just so fucking good.

So I'm curious to hear about what was kind of the impetus to get you to decide to start doing this. So it happened, it all happened on my honeymoon. That's where sort of like, it wasn't hatched then, but that's where, that's where I sort of had a mental break. I was on my honeymoon and I was in Prague and I had a dream that I died and it was black and I couldn't find my husband and I woke up from that dream and everything changed. I used to not be afraid of death. I used to be actually very suicidal and I've always had fears. I've always been an obsessive person. I've always had stuff. It just wasn't on death and my husband actually, he has a fear of death as well, but it, it manifests itself in a different way.

And so that moment when I, I was then fucking all of a sudden, I was terrified and I was like, oh my God, and then everything, my whole perspective changed, then everything became really scary and I had a fear of flying and all this other stuff already, but like, it just started to get bigger and bigger and bigger and really uncontrollable to where I was almost like, you could, I was inconsolable, like, I was sobbing all the time. Everything seemed to be about death and then I didn't know what was going to happen after death and I didn't know and I still don't know, but like, I was really scared, and you know, it was the fear of losing my husband, the fear of losing my dad or my mom or people in my life and not knowing what it turns into after and my mind couldn't comprehend it and even just thinking about it or talking about it would, nothing could make me feel better.

I mean, it was, it felt as if the world stopped for me. It was like a mental break. I tried to go to therapy and that helped a little bit and all these, it was, it was hard. I was really having a hard time having conversations. I was, I was having a hard time living, really. I was so focused on death that it was hard for me to live life. I, because everything seemed so sad, it seemed so imminent. It seemed like it was coming. So it got so bad, like my husband was like, something's wrong, like you need help, like something is really wrong, like it's taking over your life and I could agree, like you're right, it is.

And when I got a little bit of space from it, I did realize talking with people that that gave me some peace, it gave me some peace. And I was making fun of myself with a friend, my friend Natasha. And I was like, telling her, I was like, I think I have this idea for this podcast because I'm in so much pain right now. I feel like it might help. I feel like it might help me and I feel like it could help someone. And she was like, that's a great idea. And then, and then I was like, maybe I'll call it fear based life, like that's my entire life, and she like laughed. And then that was it. That stuck.

And then, and that's how I, so it was, it came out of my own sort of emotional torment really. And it's so interesting, I didn't think about it before that. I mean, I've always been a fearful person and I've always sort of been on a spiritual path, but I never really thought about having a podcast about it or talking about it openly. And the way the podcast has changed me, it's hard to say, I think, I think one of the great things that I like about the podcast is hearing other people's like rituals, like what they do that help them. I, you know, like Duncan's was really helpful for me, you know, and then sometimes I feel like I'm helpful for people.

Like it really depends on the person, like sometimes I feel it's almost as if somebody has a little bit more spirituality and I can take from them. And then sometimes I feel like people come in and they need a little bit from me. And it's, it depends on sort of the ying and the yang, like sharing a little bit. It's more of like a sharing podcast and it's helped me see some of, you know, I think something about the podcast that's interesting is I think sometimes like each episode so different is I learn more about my intolerances. And I learn, I'm learning, you know, like the spirituality part is kind of like, because this is the human mind and human nature, like it's not as much of a, not a problem, but it's not as much as a disaster at this moment or a dire thing right now because I've like moved on to something else to be afraid about.

So I still, if I get talking about death or I'll get very emotional and it'll get heated. But like if what's interesting is I find myself like in the podcast, like, you know, I'm, I'm seeing more about my, my anger towards myself or my career or other people. And I'm seeing, like that to me is really interesting where I'm like, Oh, I'm really angry today or what I do love about the podcast is other people relating, you know what I mean? And them being like, Oh, I have, I feel that way. And it's helping them. Like I think that's, that's something that I, you know, I think is a good thing. I mean, if you're helping anyone, like great, you know what I mean?

I do. Yes. That's awesome. So I feel like that, that's sort of where it came from. And like each episode is different. Like I definitely have had times where I'm always like, sometimes I'm shocked by people's fears or what experience they've had. And I feel grateful that my might not have had that experience. Yeah. Sometimes it triggers a new fear. Sometimes like, Oh, and I'm like, Oh my God, I wasn't afraid of that. But now I am now I see totally that's a new a great I'm well, that one's a new one. You know, cancer is always very triggering. So if somebody has a story of cancer, then I take that on like, it's, you know, it's a, it's really interesting.

I mean, I haven't gotten any answers yet, but I definitely felt it definitely feels like it's not my podcast. And that's like it came out of something that I didn't know was going to happen, nor did I ever think it was going to happen. I don't know where it's going to go. And I don't have any expectations for it. And it doesn't. And it's not mine. Like it was it was born to do something that's not I'm not really a part like I'm just a facility conduit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think also what you were saying and I've noticed this is the exchange of wisdom and kind of, you know, ideas to help people.

There is it's it's it's a there's both aspects of it. Sometimes I hear you just dropping amazingly useful, practical things that can help people. And then I hear someone say something that is like helping you. And that's what I've noticed in my podcast. I think when I first started it, I was like, you know what? I have a few nuggets of wisdom that I can share along the way. But what I really started realizing is, I don't know shit, I could read as much as I possibly could. And I definitely know plenty of concepts esoteric and all of these things. And they've helped me in the past at points, but like, there's so much out there from other people and their experiences and their perspectives that ultimately has just completely revolutionized the way I see everything.

And that to me is just an amazing thing. So I don't want to prod you too much on it, but what what's your relationship with the concept of death now? Well, I'm still terrified of it. I still don't want it to come. I'm still more terrified of losing, like, you know, if I lay my head on my husband's chest and I hear his harpy, I get really scared. I get really scared because I know that eventually one day that's not going to be around. Now that's me living in the future and that's not happening. And I, you know, it's something, it's literally the ultimate lack of control. And you know, and that was something my therapist, you know, we talked a lot about was like, it's, we know it's control, but it's not just that.

It's also like, I haven't found a spiritual solution yet. I haven't found now I have found things that like I'm still actively seeking, like I'm I'm thinking about doing ayahuasca, thinking about, you know, the more I meditate, the more I'm like asking for, to know more, to feel at peace a little bit, you know, there's things that I've taken that like I like, like personally, like something that brings me up solace is feeling like that there's some sort of heaven. I don't know what if that's a traditional heaven, I'm very attached to the self. I'm not, I haven't gone, you know, I get why it's not, but like I'm really attached to like the soul or whatever that is.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And I just to be clear, as much as I love Buddhism and I'm going to give you some Buddhist concepts after death states, I also am very much attached to this idea of a soul that carries over and has, you know, previous existences and lives. And that is less to do with any intellectual or conceptual understanding. I was lucky enough to have basically a transcendent experience that lasted three to six months. And the things that I experienced, not on drugs during that, I can't shake that. I'll never be able to be like, oh, that didn't happen. No, that wasn't real. That was fake.

That was just some weird delusion. Those things kind of instilled this concept that like, yeah, there's so much more going on to what we possibly can comprehend with the concepts of life and death. So I don't think that's a negative thing. Now, if you talk to Zen Buddhist or almost any Buddhist, they're going to challenge the idea of a soul. They're essentially going to say, well, there is actually no existence that is tangible. What you're experiencing through your life is the merging of emptiness, which is not a void. So I don't want to tap into your fear of that. It's not a black void of nothingness.

It's more akin to a blank slate. It's the merging of this emptiness and bliss. And these are, you know, that's probably what we refer to as compassion and wisdom. And those things create the phenomena, not only of cyclic existence, so us being, you know, living, dying, you know, animals, all their, some seric realms of existence, but it also creates the outside of that, the, the non-cyclical, the non-elusory worlds that exist as well. So I just want to say like, I, I very much believe in the soul, where that down the line if that has any inherent existence, I haven't got there yet. But I, what I will say is I also, I think anyone who starts walking down quote unquote spiritual path, death is one of these things that inevitably comes up, right?

The Buddha famously, this, when he came out of the castle, or, you know, his kingdom, he saw people getting old, people getting sick and people dying. And that was just like, what the fuck? I didn't know this happened. So that's kind of where we are when we're facing these concepts. One of the things that has given me a tremendous amount of solace, and I don't know what happens, it's still a fucking mystery. And I've spoken to like some of the smartest people and why is this people on the planet about this? And that's what they'll eventually say. But one of the things that has really helped me process the idea of death, not death itself, but the idea of death is the Buddhist, specifically the Tibetan Buddhist concepts of the after state Bartos.

The reason for thinking people like me, the reason it works so well is they have studied this shit. It's a science. It's not some woo, woo, you know, this is what happens, take our word for it, do good. And then you'll go here, like if you really start delving in to the Bartos states and, you know, really long expositions from thousands of years ago up until today, there's it's insane. There's lists. There's specific things that happen. There's the solutions that happen during the dying process. There are things that happen as soon as you leave your body. There are things that are related to the world of becoming.

And what's very interesting, and I would be remiss if I didn't point this out, into that in Buddhism, a Bartos state that is very important and is often overlooked is the dream state. The dream of experiencing that is completely in line with how this would happen. And experience like essentially the idea in Buddhism to vet in Buddhism, what the dream state is for is essentially you can lucid dream, you train yourself to lucid dream. And then once you train yourself to lucid dream, you go into the dream state and you basically meditate essentially for the well being of all all sentient beings, yourself, everything.

And you're basically doing overtime work, right? You can do meditation while you're sleeping and this supposedly has a very positive impact on your personal karma and the karma of everything around you. So I mean all I can say is like I am not here to alleviate anyone's fear about death because I don't know what the fuck is going on. I'm not going to suppose presuppose that I have some great idea. But I do believe that there are people who do know what's going on. I do fundamentally believe that and my kind of buffer against the death state and I just want to be clear so I don't sound like some preachy asshole here.

I got a freckle on my palm a week ago and I thought I had skin cancer and I went to my wife and I was like, oh, she's like, you're a fucking idiot, like you're a fucking idiot. That's a freckle. Like what the fuck isn't that with you? So I am, I'm not buffered against this completely, but at least when I really start going into those deep states of contemplating what is death, what is the end of life, you know, and talk about listening to your husband's heart, I have a baby eight month old right now. I mean, that is those thoughts amplify a hundred percent, a million percent when you have a child.

It's just, it's insane. But there are tools out there and I think if you look especially back at wisdom traditions, this helps me personally and mystics, they all kind of start saying the same thing. Don't be afraid. Not because you have to take our word for it. Not because it's because this is a natural part of what happens and it's a mystery, but it's not necessarily something that is going to be as bad as you intellectually or conceptually or thinking that it's going to be. Does that help overall? I don't know. But it is something that at least gives me something from my mind, my very busy intellectual mind to grasp onto that can placate that because when I've noticed when my fears come up around death, sickness, dying, all those things, it's almost exclusively in the mental realm.

It's almost exclusively there. There may be feelings attached, there may be emotions, but it is really just me going back to what you're talking about control. I know the reason I hate flying. I know it couldn't know it more. I hate flying because I'm not flying the fucking plane. I don't know if something goes wrong. I don't know what's going on. I don't know. My hands are in someone else and that terrifies me. And I think that ultimately is very much related to the concept of dying and death. We don't know what the fuck is going to happen and that's terrifying. But the real truth is I'll leave you with this quote, you know, to kind of sum up this little exposition here is one of my favorite Tibetan teachers, Cho Geom Trunka has a wonderful quote which is, "The bad news is you're falling through the air with nothing to hang on to, no parachute."

The good news is there's no ground. And that's essentially the state we live in as human beings, no matter what we like to believe and surround ourselves with. We're falling, right? We're falling into whatever is to come after life. But for us to presume that that means the cessation of anything is just as presumptuous to say, "Well, we know there's a heaven and we're going to have as many donuts as we want and we're never going to get that." We just don't know. But I do think there are people who have made it their lives and generations and cyclical existence mission to provide some insight into this state and what it's there for.

So that's all I have to say related to death, but it's going to be a bit. Yeah, it's good. I think for me, all of it is good because it's information and whatever sticks sticks. And for me now, I'm praying to my loved ones that have passed and I'm assuming that the soul is going to stick after death. I don't have any proof of it. I don't think it's going to ... I'm assuming I'm going to see my husband in the afterlife and that is what it's going to be. And I don't have any proof of that. I don't know if that's going to happen. I don't know what it's going to be like. Because for me, reincarnation does not work.

It's not something that creates any kind of peace in me. I talked about that with ... Oh my God, Jesus Christ, I forgot his name. And I've talked about that. And reincarnation doesn't help me, but for whatever reason, because how it is raised, the word God is useful. I don't know why. It's a useful term to me, even though sometimes it's triggering to other people. I think we're all talking about the same thing, but it's all very different. Some people I don't want to be right because I'm like, "That doesn't sound good." It doesn't sound good. It doesn't sound good. I don't want that. I don't want to be in a place where because I believe that there's a reason why I met my husband and there's a reason we're healing something in each other and we're creating an energy that's more positive together and that's meant in the afterlife.

There's the karma in that, but I don't believe ... It was something that I really enjoyed about talking to my therapist. I believe in soul groups, my family. Now where that goes and what happens after that, I don't know, which is why I keep seeking it, which is why I keep praying to ... I keep desperately praying to my loved ones who have passed for a sign that they're here, that they're on the same plane, that they're not a way, that it's just different. Do you get the signs? I don't know because I'm so sarcastic and mean. I don't know what sign I would recognize, you know what I mean? Sometimes I have this feeling when I'm ... One time I was on the plane and I was really losing it and I was like, "Oh man, I'm losing it."

I imagined if my aunt was sitting next to me, "Now did I create this or was it there? I don't know. I don't know." My friend was like, "Well, why couldn't she have been there? Why does that have to be something that you created?" I was like, "Well, because it doesn't make any sense, do you know what I mean?" And then the other day I was meditating in all of the podcasts and I didn't say it at the time because I was embarrassed, but I had this feeling that my grandparents came and sat with me or just their energy or their spirit were behind me and I had this really peaceful moment. It was only three minutes and then it passed, but then I was like, I probably imagine that.

I probably because I've been praying for it, I made that happen and it's just a feeling and it's not something that's happening. Right, right. So I keep praying for signs that I see a ghost or that I see or something pushes over and a letter is written that's like, "Hi, it's grandma." And I'm like, "That's a sign." The one time I interviewed the medium, he was like, "You know, the sign might not come in the version that you think, but how am I going to know something's a sign?" And so it's like, it can always be disproved, it can always be. That's right. That's right. That's right. So what you're talking about, I think, is this concept of it's this interplay of faith and experience.

And I have a friend who passed the way, man, I guess it's almost been like five or six years, probably longer at this point. He was the best person I ever knew. He was just a friend, he was the type of person. If you were ever having any type of problem with anything, he would be there in a second. I don't know many people like that. I mean, I literally, you could say, "Hey, I just broke up with my girlfriend." He'd be there, you know, right there to talk with you. Truthfully, I couldn't find anyone who ever had anything bad to say about the guy. He died on Christmas Eve, I forget how many years ago at this point, and I got the distinct impression that this was essentially an angel person.

And I think about him commonly, and there will be times out of the blue where I will have a feeling that he is there, that he is there, that he can understand what's happening, that there is some energy that's being communicated. And I look at it the same way that I look at synchronicities, the name of my podcast. I think these things are real. I think once we start bringing too much of our intellectual capacity into analyzing these things, they will inevitably break down, right? If we're using the physical Newtonian physics models of the world and scientific empirical paradigm, this stuff will not hold up.

But when you touch that thing, when you say you believe in souls, I mean, Rambas has a wonderful idea and concept that I 100% subscribed to, which he calls soul pods. And soul pods are essentially souls that congregate with each other. I mean, he believes in reincarnation and believes this is cyclic, but these souls throughout each of their lives continuously find each other and hang out with each other exactly for the reason you're talking about, to connect, to create positive energy, to remind, to essentially tap into wisdom and compassion and spread that out as much as they can. So I mean, the trick is, is people have a hard time believing me when I say this.

I'm a very skeptical person. I believe in a ton of crazy, far out shit, like insane amounts, more than most people, but I'm incredibly skeptical. But what I've learned to do is let the skepticism kind of stop at a certain point and just be like, I don't know, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but I'm not going to rule it out. And the more you kind to do that, like I've had experiences in my life with synchronicities where literally, and I cannot overstate this, for three months, every single fucking second of every single day was a synchronicity. And I don't mean that in some like, oh yeah, it was kind of a sick, I mean, if I thought of something, if I thought of a TV show, I would look up and a bus would be going by and it had the TV show on it.

And I mean, my entire existence was like that. That shifted me out of this kind of intellectual mental perspective that allowed me to kind of be like, we don't know what's really happening here. So for me to dismiss any idea of what's going on isn't really going to be productive for me. So what would happen was after that is I would get awed by the synchronicities. I'd be like, oh my God, that's amazing. Can you believe this? This is nuts. That also passed. And instead of getting awed or ignoring, I just accepted it as a fact of life that I couldn't totally understand, but nevertheless existed.

So I think, I mean, I imagine your experiences will continue to validate what your intention is putting forth, so you're praying to love ones, you're trying to communicate. It's been my experience and the experience I know from a lot of other people, something will happen, something's going to happen that will shift this switch from, I don't really know to like, oh shit, I definitely know, but it's also not like the biggest deal in the world. This is just a new kind of layer of paradigm that exists now. So I mean, I think, you know, I got to say this, but like honestly, when you have a podcast called fear based life, I think at least my initial conception was like, okay, she's going to be talking to people about fears and it's going to be illuminating.

But I think you're providing such a service for people that I'm sure you are somewhat aware of. But this is like one of the most important things you can do in life, like you're helping so many people with their fears, you're getting stuff out in the open and it's creating an incredibly positive experience for like thousands of people, which is fucking amazing. So I just wanted to say like you're really like, you're, I don't know you personally. This is the first time we're talking at length, but you're seriously like, I'm really happy to know you and be tuned into what you're doing because it's fucking helpful.

Like it, that's those are the types of people I like to know. So that's cool. Well, thank you so much. I mean, it does, it's all like that, you know, as like I'm saying, like you pray for a sign or something's happening, like, you know, there's a reason why like the podcast started to do well. Do you know what I mean? I do. I'm not like, because I'm like fucking raking it in person. But like, you know, it's why it's stuck. It's why it wasn't so hard. It's not hard for me, like, because like when, when I'm in line with whatever I'm supposed to be doing, it's not hard, you know what I mean? It just like happens.

And I'm sure you feel that with your podcast, like you're like, Oh yeah, this is like fine. This is making, this makes sense. And that's, that's it. I mean, and I'm telling you, like, this is why I'm making it my mission to try to create systems just like Dustin is that gets people paid and they can have a living doing this because this is the type of shit, not going to an office and a job and, you know, even if that's something you enjoy, this is the stuff that's actually going to help people. These are the conversations that help people when the world is fucking going to shit and their relationships are falling apart and people they know are dying.

Like this is the antidote to that. So I mean, I, I know exactly what we're talking about. I'm super happy and excited that you also kind of tapped into that this is what you should be doing and the benefit of it. So I'm not going to keep you that much longer. I want you to get breakfast. I'm going to ask you three quick questions and then one question at the end of that. And then we're done. Great. Okay. What's your favorite color? Orange. Awesome. Love it. What's your favorite number? Eleven cool. What's your favorite animal? Well, today it's a dog. Oh, I love it. I love it. What you have a dog?

What's your dog's name? Mason. Mason. You know, my dog's name is Macio. Really? Yeah. He's a little golden doodle. It's a cute little boy. All right. Last question. Uh, what's a practical tip that has helped you that you could share with listeners that has helped you in your life and could be anything? Um, what do you think? Well, I'll do something recently. So something recently that's been helping me is when I think a bunch of people are judging me and I'm, and I feel bad about myself, um, I force myself to speak to the person in front of me, um, and I'm inevitably proven wrong, which then proves me, which then gives me more validation that my thinking isn't always the most sound because my thinking is not, it's not my soul.

Right. It's different. You know what I mean? But my thinking is great. And it's like, awesome. Sometimes, you know what I mean? But like, like it happened to me yesterday where I was like, everyone hates me. I hate this. I don't want to do that. I'm like, blah, blah. And there was somebody in front of me. And he was nice. And I was like, fuck, what's happened? Wait, what? Does not compute. Yeah. Yeah. And if I'm uncomfortable and then I talk to them and then I'd be nice to them and we'd have a conversation and then it would be over. And I'd be like, and it would give me power, it made me feel better because what usually sometimes I have, I have fallen into the trap of, I'm not going to say anything.

And then I leave, and then I've been proven right that everyone is an asshole, and that I'm not worth having a conversation, and that I don't want to be here. And you know what, like these just aren't, aren't cool people, you know what I mean? Or whatever. I know exactly what you're talking about. Like if you go to a party and you don't know people and you feel a little ostracized, it's, you know, it could just be completely in your head. And those could be like really fucking cool people. But you've just validated to yourself that you're not and you're not. Yeah. I know exactly. That's a fucking really good tip.

And sometimes, you know, like, and what I did yesterday is, is I would say I would be emotionally vulnerable. Like that is what helped these conversations. I didn't just say like, Hey, how are you? I just said, Oh, hey, I'm feeling uncomfortable. I feel like everyone needs me. And I would just say, I was just like sort of worried out and they'd be like, what? Really? I always thought it was all, you know, and then I'd be like, Oh, well, what thing? You know, I would just start asking them questions about themselves and be like, yeah, I just been feeling like, I was really nervous about, but whatever.

And I would just say, just be emotionally available. Yeah. Oh man. I love it. Mel, we'll have to do this again. I really, this is good. Yes. When you come out to LA in March, I'd love to have you onto your base life. I'd love to do it mid March. I'll keep you posted. Thank you so much for coming on. I can't wait to put this one out and have fun at Sketchfest. That's today. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And I look forward to meeting you in real life. Yeah. Same. All right. 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